Little Girls in Pretty Boxes

1) The point the author is trying to make is that we are exploiting young girls to a world they don't know about. It is all based on self image and being the best, which, in turn has made them fail at their dream because they are on diets and taking pills. That isn't a message we want to send to our young pre-teen girls.

2) She talked about many other athletes that are involved in figure skating and gymnastics and how the things they were being told were ruining their career and their mind. It was very effective becausee the author compared girls to guys and girls can only be champions when they are YOUNG girls, but guys can't succeed until they are MEN.

3) I absolutely agree and I think that it is sick because the sport is no longer a sport, it's a career. It makes them hurt their bodies because they are brain washed and they put no blame on the coach or the parents. It is all on the ATHLETES shoulders so they feel pressured from every angle.

In conclusion I would like to say that I really enjoyed Composition II and I think you are a great English teacher :) I hope to run into you in the hallways within the next three years that I will be attending Baker!

-Alyssa Kuras

Recommendation

If I were to write my paper, "Why we need to wear our seat belts" as a recommendation I think the first thing I would want is for it to become a law. It sort of already is but I think that we can enforce it more. Our police officers should care about saving lives and besides all of the other violations they look for this should be on the list. The only fall back about this is that it is a choice and you wouldn't be able to MAKE someone wear their seat belt. Although after your first offense and paying the $60.00 ticket if you get caught again a police officer should be able to issue another ticker for more money. Maybe we could double the cost and and on your third offense I think you should pay triple the money and go to jail. I think it is THAT serious. Or we could put points on your license or something, but we definitely need to get the point across. The good thing about it is that it would make drivers more cautious, they would wear their seat belts more often and it would save more lives.

Research Paper

I think that I am going to do my research paper on "Why we should wear seatbelts in cars" just because I think it is a extremely important matter that younger kids need to grasp. As soon as teenagers start driving they need to know what "could" happen had they not worn their seatbelt. I have many personal experiences with car accidents. One of my friends that many people know if you ever read the Flint Journal, Kayla Mary O'mara, she died in a car accident with two of her best friends one of them being her twin sister. She was riding in the back seat and wasn't wearing her seatbelt and it took her life. Another one of my very best friends was coming home from school (Grand Valley in Grand Rapids) and she ended up rolling her car (not her fault) but because she was wearing her seatbelt her injuries weren't all too serious. She broke her back and it took several months of recovery to get back on her feet, but she is still alive today. I think that kids don't understand just how important seatbelts are. You could be going a few miles down the road and it is STILL important because ANYTHING could happen. Many young teenagers believe that it just isn't a cool thing to wear seatbelts and a seatbelt shouldn't be looked as a fashion trend. It is a life saver! I myself was in a car accident over thanksgiving break. I was with a girlfriend and we were getting on the express way and a huge truck rammed into the back end of my friends hummer that we were in and we were on the express way and the force of him hitting us made our car flip a few times off the expressway. Had I not been wearing my seatbelt I wouldn't be he typing this today. Seatbelts are extremely important and it is something that we need to address to all people, especially new drivers.

Celebrities

I think that the media goes a little overboard with all of the celebrity gossip. Even though they do get paid for every article they write and ever picture they print it is ANNOYING. I for one am one of those people that like gossip ever now and again. I dont subscribe to all the popular gossip magazines like "people" or "star" I am more of a "vogue" or "cosmo" girl. Anyways back to my point... these people are either musically talented or they act. BIG WOOP. Their lives are under a magnifying glass. Like for example when Heath Ledger died and you watched the coverage on tv.. by the time they brought the body out of his apartment it was dark but you couldnt even tell with all of the FLASHES of cameras going off. Like, come on people, he's DEAD. Let him die in peace and out of the magazines and news. Its crazy how the poparzzi think they have a right to be there when things get so bad like that. If I were his family....I would go postal. To be grieving and people taking pictures of you constantly. I would lose my mind. Honestly, I don't know how "celebrities" do it all the time. How they can live in the limelight like they do. I guess I don't blame Britney Spears for having a mental breakdown for the entire world to see, I probably would to if I were in her shoes.

It's crazy. It's ridiculous. Some of it is the truth, but mostly lies, either way everyone believes it. Not to mention this is someones job description and it really is so sad.

Evaluation

I read Robert Ebert's evaluation on "The Bucket List" with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson and he critisized it based on what the movie was about and the things that they did. First off he hated the fact that it was narrated by Morgan Freeman and the fact that they were both two patients dying of cancer and they made a list of "Things to do" before they both kick the old bucket. So, they do crazy things like go sky diving, race cars, visit the himilayas, taj mahal, the pyramids, honk kong and so forth.

I for one thought the movie was very cute and inspiring. It made me think about life and how it is too short to be bitter about death. If you have things left unfinished or you want to see certain things or experience certain things, GO DO THEM! Live a little before you die, so that when you do die, you are leaving a legacy behind. You want people to be proud that even though we were given the worse news in the world (you are going to live for one year) you fulfilled it with all the things you wanted. The things that were going to make you happy! That is what the movie should have told people. Not that because you have cancer it is impossible to live a little. I think that Roger thought it was ridiculous because you never see people living at all. You see people getting the news and having a piss poor attitude and feeling all sorry for themselves.

Life is too short to waste time feeling sorry for ourselves.

Gossip never sleeps.

For my causal arguement I am writing about why gossip magazines are so popular.

1) People like feeling they are connected to people they really like or really don't like by knowing a lot about them.
2) It's something to talk (gossip) about with your friends and family,
3) You can focus on someone else's life without thinking of your own. Living vicariously through somone else.
4) They are Funny.

The reason I chose this is because the media is seriously taking over our T.V's, internet, magazine racks, even our daily conversations with other people. It's always about who is doing what or who and who broke up and who got caught doing drugs. IT'S CRAZY! Don't get me wrong, I do it too and that is why I am going to write about it :)

Popular Culture

How do you honestly regulate popular culture? There is no way and before you know it what was in "style" is out and something new is "in". Trends come and go and I dont think that it is up to us, the people, to regulate it, but that our country should. Our country should care about our image and what we regulate in and out (inport and export) of it. However, I think that more than anything we run the way that our country "looks" and it is up to us to stop the negative popular culture. For example, we don't want the rest of the world to think that everyone that lives in the U.S. are a bunch of drug addicts because drugs exist within our boarders. I guess you could go both ways with it. You could put the blame on the government, but in all honesty we are the ones that are running the "popular culture" so to speak.

Welcome!

I think that argumentative writing is writing passionately about something you care about. It doensn't necessarily have to be an arguement. Its a process of establishing your position on an issue and backing it up with evidence. You want to pursuade your reader that something exists, or convince them that one thing may have made another thing happen or to get your reader out of his/her seat and do something about it! No matter what your argument may be, you always have to have evidence/proof/facts to back it up. It may not change your readers mind in how they think, but you want your voice to be heard!